(Militant No. 60, January 1970 p. 2, of course we would today not use the N-word)
By Peter Taaffe
The bestial murder of Fred Hampton and Mark Clark, Black Panther leaders in Chicago, in December followed a few days later by the police attack on the Panthers‘ Los Angeles headquarters has revealed to the World Labour Movement the bloody depths to which reaction in the United States is prepared to stoop to check the movement of the Afro-Americans. The murder of Hampton was a particularly cowardly affair. The Panther leader was shot while still in bed. The police attack in Los Angeles had the same hallmark.
Ranged against 13 Panthers and two women were „300 policemen armed with arrest warrants, search warrants, shotguns, AR-15 rifles, tear-gas grenades, satchel charges, one helicopter, a 6 ft. steel battering ram, a National Guard armoured personnel carrier and a fire department ‚Jetax‘ used to cut through the roof of burning buildings.“ (Time magazine 19/12/69.) No doubt the element of „risk“ involved will earn the police some bravery award! ·
Black and white workers unite!
But whereas previously the police were able to pick off individual Panthers with little outcry, this time the sheer organised viciousness of these latest attacks have forced the „moderate“ black leaders to speak up. Even Whitney Young. impeccable „liberal“ exponent of non-violence and an opponent of the Panthers, was forced to condemn the police conspiracy.
Amongst the black workers, and particularly the youth, it has served only to reinforce the appeal of the Panthers. As a result the fact of a national police conspiracy to wipe out the top leadership of the Panthers has been driven home; 28 of their number have been killed in battles with the police in the last two years. Bobby Seale, Chairman of the organisation, was recently denied the elementary right to defend himself in the Chicago trial of 8 anti-war leaders, was tied and gagged like a criminal and received four years imprisonment for protesting against his treatment.
The ostensible excuse given by the police is the Panthers alleged „armed conspiracy“. In fact their bearing of arms has been entirely for self defence and this right is supposed to be guaranteed under the American Constitution. Even the Times was forced to concede: „most of the violence that has resulted from the raids appears to have been at least initiated by the
police“ (10/12/69.) But the real reason why these attacks have been mounted was given last summer by the chief of the Federal Bureau of Investigation, J. Edgar Hoover, when he characterised the Panthers as „the greatest threat to the internal security“ of the American
ruling class. In the eyes of Hoover and his armed detachments this arises from the Panthers‘ rejection of racism and their perspective that the black Americans will have to link up on a class basis with the white revolutionary forces to solve their problems.
In the past period they have specifically rejected the separatist delusions of the Black Muslims and the middle class „go it alone“ Black Power position of Stokely Carmichael. In their organisation is the first stirrings of the black Americans towards a class understanding of American society … „I think a lot of whites are made racist against their essential humanity and without their conscious knowledge“ (Eldridge Cleaver, one of the exiled Panthers leaders). At the same time this understanding that the black workers will link up with the white worker under the impact of the mighty events being prepared by the crisis in American society, goes hand in hand with a crude acceptance of some of the ideas of Stalinism. The Panthers magazine recently praised Stalin and in dealing with some of the opponents standing on the Left they have resorted to strong arm tactics. Part of the explanation for this was the refusal of some of the „Marxist“ organisations in America to pose a clear class solution to the problems of the Negro revolt in the past five years. In fact some of them are still standing to the right of the Panthers and criticising them for adopting a class approach!
The genuine Marxist forces in defending the Panthers from the attacks of the police and armed reaction will at the same time seek to link up the movement amongst the black workers with the discontent which is brewing in the ranks of the white workers at the rise in the cost of living and the Vietnam war. This is reflected in the formation of Alliance for Labor, comprising 4½ million Trade Unionists. In the process of trying to forge this alliance of white and black workers through the demand for a party of the workers, a Labor Party, the lessons of defeats of the past brought about by the false policies of the Stalinists will be explained and hammered home. Only in this way, by the adoption of a clear Marxist programme, will it be possible for the Panthers to play a leading role in mobilising all workers to defeat the rotten system of capitalism which breeds racism, soul-destroying unemployment, lynch law and police assassination for the victims who fight back.
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